


How it all Began

by Aprilmallick, DJ_unicornsrgr8



Series: Based off of Peter & Bucky are pals [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Gen, Homelessness, How it all started, M/M, Minor Character Death, Not Spider-Man: Homecoming Compliant, Poor Peter Parker, Precious Peter Parker, Prequel, but a little bit compliant, but it has a tentatively happy ending, dj_unicornsrgr8 amazing series, follows the basic plot of smhc but not really, owlets bucky, slightly AU, super family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-07-04 18:57:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 16,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15847353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aprilmallick/pseuds/Aprilmallick, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJ_unicornsrgr8/pseuds/DJ_unicornsrgr8
Summary: The long awaited prequel to @DJ_unicornsrgr8's amazing series, Peter and Bucky are Pals!Peter has known loss and pain and homelessness for far too long. When The Avenger's take him in, will everything finally be okay?It seems so, but there's then The Vulture to worry about too.Hardest of all for Peter to deal with . . . is himself.





	1. Chapter one

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Five Times Peter Got Help With Schoolwork and The One Time It Was Done For Him](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13220799) by [DJ_unicornsrgr8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJ_unicornsrgr8/pseuds/DJ_unicornsrgr8). 



> Howdy folks, I got permission to write the prequel to Peter and Bucky are Pals. I don't know how often I'll be able to update since class is about to start and I just got a job. Hopefully I'll update at least once a month.  
> Are y'all sufficiently excited? Let's go!

Peter’s life started going downhill when he turned 13. That’s when the incident happened. On a school trip he was bitten by a radioactive spider. 

At first it seemed really cool, a novelty of sorts. He was suddenly stronger and able to climb up walls with his bare hands. 

Less than a month later, Uncle Ben was murdered. And it was all Peter’s fault. People started treating him like glass. Even Flash said he was sorry. Everyone was sorry, even though Ben wasn’t dead because of them. 

Ben was dead because of him. 

And so, Peter threw himself into protecting civilians. He made himself a suit and a web formula to emulate the spider that had bitten him. He saved as many lives as he could.

He didn’t save enough.

Peter was 14 when he lost May. It was stupid, he thought to himself after the fact, that everyone used the word “lost.” “Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss.” Or, when finding out that she was dead, “When did you lose her?”

She wasn’t really lost, Peter wanted to tell them. She’d been taken. Literally, she’d been kidnapped and then never came back. 

Again, it was Peter’s fault. It really was. If he’d just saved that one life, then the man wouldn’t have gone after Aunt May, seeking revenge against Peter for not saving his brother. A life for a life, he’d said. To Peter, the logic was infallible.

Peter started to hate Spider-man. His life had been great before it happened. Peter was sure that his powers must be the reason for everyone he loved dying. It was some kind of karma. It had to be. He gave up on being Spider-man for a while. He was destroying more lives than he was saving, or so he had convinced himself. 

Peter was thrust into the foster care system. Sure, he was a well-behaved polite young man who didn’t take up much space, but almost no one wanted to adopt such an old kid. Especially not one who kept disappearing at night and having panic attacks. His good nature wasn’t worth the baggage.

School continued on as normal, not that normal was good. Peter had no friends, so there was no one to tell about Aunt May’s passing. The faculty had been informed, of course, and put in contact with his case manager, as well as whichever adult he was staying with as he was hopped around from home to home. Some of his teachers tried. They really did, but Peter didn’t want their help. He didn’t deserve it. Not after inadvertently killing everyone everyone close to him. 

Flash continued being an ass to him, once the novelty of having a dead family member wore off. It was worse after May died because Flash didn’t even slow down in his abuse when it happened, courtesy of him not knowing. Flash made fun of his clothes, his grades, his inability to get a girl. Peter stopped going to school and his grades dropped. He started caring less and feeling numb more. 

The foster family he was staying with was just two adults who were never home, and him. They made sure he was fed and clothed, and that was about it.  
Peter was just glad he was out of the first place, where there had been so many people stuffed into one house that he’d constantly felt on the edge of freaking out. And the second place where the man of the house had hit him.  
Either way, they weren’t present enough to care about Peter’s personal well-being, and they definitely weren’t making him go to school. 

Eventually, Peter hit rock bottom. 

After a particularly bad day (he’d actually gone to school. Flash had said some particularly unkind things about his lack of friends and he was feeling the loneliness rather acutely.) he went to go visit May in the cemetery. 

Peter sat down in front of her headstone and cried. “I-I never told you this before.” he said shakily. “But I’m spider-man.”  
He waited for something to happen. Nothing did. The world kept turning; nobody cared. Peter started crying even harder.  
Through many broken heaving sobs and gasping, Peter told his entire story to a grave.

“And now you’re gone, and I can’t even help people right without hurting other ones more and I just want to- to give up.” He finished, curling into a ball with his head between his legs.  
Still, there was nothing. Peter wasn’t even sure his aunt was listening. After all, who knew if there was really anything after death? Only the people he couldn’t save, that’s who.

Peter drew in a shuddering breath. Maybe there wasn’t anything after death. Nothingness was sounding really good right now. Maybe he should just-

“Hello?” He heard a soft voice coming from above him and for a wild second he thought it was Aunt May. 

He looked up with something close to hope and was rewarded with a sharp stab of disappointment. It was an older women with faint creases around her face. She looked unbelievably kind.

“Are you okay there, young man?” 

She looked concerned, Peter thought. It had been so long since someone worried about him.

“I-” Peter couldn’t go on. He couldn’t say he was fine, and he couldn’t tell her the truth. He got up slowly, rubbing at his face. 

“Can I ask who you’re visiting today?” The lady asked gently. 

“It’s-it’s my aunt.” Peter said, hating how his voice broke on the word ‘aunt.’  
“She was all I had left.”

“When did she die?” Asked the woman. 

“Almost a year ago.” Peter told her. He sniffed pitifully.

“I’m Rachel,” the woman said, holding out a hand to him. 

“Peter.” Peter reached out to take her hand, surprised when she swept him up into a hug.  
He couldn’t help it- he melted. It had been so long since he’d been exposed to human contact, discounting any and all physical abuse. 

“Now, I didn’t know your aunt, but I am an extraordinarily good judge of character.” Rachel told him, “And I can see that she raised an extremely kind, intelligent, and sensitive young man. She’s very proud of you, I’m sure of it.”

“Th-thank you.” Peter said humbly, eyes watering.

“And she doesn’t want you to give up.” Rachel said. Her eyes were sharp, and Peter was sure she knew exactly what he’d been thinking when she stumbled upon him. “Not ever.”

“No ma’am.” Peter mumbled. 

They stood together in silence for a minute, looking at May’s grave.

“What do I do now?” Peter whispered.

Unexpectedly, Rachel smiled. “Exactly what your aunt would want you to do.” She said. “Keep going. Keep fighting. Live your life in a way that will make her stay proud of you.” 

Peter squared his shoulders. He could do that. 

“Who are you here for?” He asked, partly to be polite and partly out of genuine curiosity. 

“My wife.” Rachel gestured at a headstone a few spaces away. “She died from cancer.”

“I’m sorry.” Peter said. 

“Oh, don’t be.” the woman said, “It’s been five years and we’re closer than ever.”

“How do you,” Peter bit his lip. “How do you do that?”

Rachel sighed. “It takes time. And practice. Having friends helps.”

Peter nodded. He would try. It was all he could do.

\----------

Peter picked up his grades as well as being Spider-man after meeting Rachel. The woman had convinced him that helping people and reaching his full academic potential was the best way to make all of his dead family members proud. His 15th birthday passed in a blur. There was no one around to wish him a happy birthday, but he barely noticed. 

He worked harder than ever to save everyone, not just as many as he could. 

Unfortunately, with the rise of Spidey came a leap in Peter staying out late, sneaking out when he had to, and more injuries than ever.  
His foster parents eventually noticed once the school faculty took note of the cuts and bruises he appeared with regularly and contacted them about it. 

That was how Peter ended up in his fourth and final foster home. 

The last one was just a middle-aged woman named Tabitha who was terribly nosy. She hovered and asked about everything. She wouldn’t let Peter deflect either. Sometimes she wouldn’t let him go to bed until he gave her a few details about school or where he’d been all day.  
Peter was fairly sure that Tabitha was trying to live vicariously through him, or she just thought that her method was a good parenting style.

The sneaking out at night didn’t go unnoticed. When Peter refused to tell her why he was sneaking out at night and to where, Tabitha bolted his window shut and started locking his bedroom door so that he couldn’t go out. He felt like he was living inside of Harry Potter. 

Being unable to leave and do his job as Spider-man was the last straw for Peter. When he tried appealing to his case manager, the man insisted that Tabitha had a right to look after him how she thought was best, and keeping him inside the house was reasonable as long as he kept disobeying her. 

In that same conversation, Peter found out that Tabitha was interested in possibly adopting him. Apparently she thought they were making progress in the family department. 

The next day Peter disappeared somewhere in between school and her house. He’d made sure that his backpack was full of clothes, including his Spider-Man suit, and all the money he possessed, which was barely more than pocket change. 

He had to leave behind his cell phone so that he couldn’t be tracked.  
He had to leave school with five months of his sophomore year of high school left, leaving it unfinished and rendering him a drop-out.

Peter was just barely 15 and homeless, with absolutely no one. 

After a few close calls with the police, Peter realized that remaining Spider-man almost permanently would be easier than being a homeless Peter Parker. He knew that his face was appearing occasionally on missing children lists. Spider-man’s was not. On the occasions where he didn’t want to patrol anymore, public libraries were a blessing. He could stay there until closing if he wanted and no one cared. 

Since Peter refused to compromise his morals and steal, he did a lot of dumpster diving.  
It was surprising, how much edible food restaurants tended to throw out.  
Unfortunately, they also disposed of some less edible food, which was how Peter found out that he was not immune to food poisoning.

He kept fairly clean from the many beaches nearby which weren’t too far with public transportation and web-slinging.  
Keeping clean in the winter was hard, since he had no place warm to go and therefore didn’t want to get wet.  
In the warmer months he almost always felt uncomfortably sticky and dry from bathing in saltwater. Rain was a blessing. Peter couldn’t use gym showers like many other homeless people did because he was a minor with no identification, no money, and he was technically on the run.

Peter also had limited means to make more web fluid, so he couldn’t go swinging around the city for leisure anymore. It had to be saved for webbing up bad guys. Sometimes he would miraculously gather all of the ingredients needed, and Peter would brew up some new batches. Some things he would save up for with money he found lying on the ground, and some he would find in laboratory dumpsters. Occasionally the materials were corrupted, and did interesting things to the webbing.  
Sometimes it was fine, like when it was just a little tougher than usual, and sometimes not so much, like that time it hadn’t been able to support his weight at all without stretching alarmingly.

He found odd places to sleep. He’d run away during a warmer month and it really wasn’t so bad. There were rooftops readily available for him to spread out on and look up at the stars. (The ones he could see with all the city pollution.)  
The winter was harder. There were all the places homeless people stayed, but they were dangerous, even for him. Shelters were out of the question since he’d have to go as Peter, not Spider-Man, and risk being found. Either way, Peter didn’t want the city knowing that Spider-Man was homeless.  
Eventually Peter found himself sleeping in an air-duct behind The Avengers Tower. For some unknown reason, they were very wide and warm and dry. They made for a more than decent shelter.  
Peter couldn’t help wishing passionately that he was an avenger at that moment. He curled up in his suit and a not-too-moldy blanket he’d filched from someone’s trash, holding his backpack full of essentials close, and fell asleep.

\----------

“Sir?” Jarvis said.

“Yeah, J?” Tony asked

“There appears to be a disturbance in the air-ducts.” Jarvis said hesitantly. “It could be an animal seeking shelter from the cold, but the weather is corrupting my outside sensors.”

“Tell Clint to go check it out.” Tony grunted. He was busy. The armour was having trouble with the cold and he couldn’t figure out why. 

“Yes sir.”

Clint, as it turned out, was already in the vents. It wasn’t too hard for him to navigate his way to the ones outside the tower. 

He was expecting to see nothing. Maybe a squirrel at the very least. He was definitely not expecting to stumble across the inert form of Spider-Man snuggling a backpack and lying underneath a disgusting ratty blanket. He crouched next to the man, reaching out and prodding his arm lightly. 

Peter startled awake when someone touched him. He sprang up, sticking to the top of the unusually large air-duct. 

“Woah there.” The man who had touched him held his hands up in surrender. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

He was sandy haired and wearing purple, Peter noted. And . . . there was a bow and quiver slung across his back. “You’re Hawkeye.” He realized

Clint knew, as soon as the suited figure spoke, that he was dealing with a kid. A homeless kid. There was no other explanation. “In the flesh. And you’re Spider-Man, right? We’ve been keeping tabs on you.” Thinking fast, he said, “Hey, you wanna come inside? The team will definitely want to meet you.”

Peter was taken aback. Freaking Hawkeye had found him sleeping (trespassing) in the tower and immediately invited him inside? It had to be a trap. Not a very good one either. 

“I- no, that’s okay. I’m really sorry.” Peter rambled, “I’ll go find somewhere else to sleep. Like um. My house. Because, I have one. Definitely. A house. It’s my own house too.”

“Just to talk,” Clint insisted. “And it’s totally cool if you’re homeless. We’ve all been there. At the very least, come inside to eat our leftovers and we can get you a nicer blanket.”  
Of course there was absolutely no way he was letting the kid go back to on the streets, but he didn’t need to know that yet.

Peter nodded reluctantly. It seemed that the archer wouldn’t take no for an answer. Plus he was starving and cold. Surely if they tried calling the police he’d manage to get out before they arrived. 

Clint led the way back to the common floor. “Jarvis? Let Tony know I’m coming back with Spider-man.”

“Done, Agent Barton.” a pleasant british voice came from the walls, startling Peter badly. “Apologies, Mr. Spider-man. I did not mean to cause you distress. I am Jarvis, Mr. Stark’s Artificial Intelligence butler, of sorts.”

“It’s fine.” Peter murmured. He’d heard talk of Tony Stark’s natural sounding AI, but he’d never expected it to be directed at him! 

\----------

Tony reluctantly left his workshop to go meet the disturbance. Spider-man. He’d been monitoring the web-slinging vigilante for a while now, trying to figure out who he was. The guy was either homeless, or really good at getting to his house unseen. Judging by how he was lurking in the tower vents, Tony was going to go with homeless. 

“What kind of guy keeps saving people when he can’t even take care of himself?” Tony muttered to himself. 

There was a faint creaking noise above his head and then Clint jumped lightly down from the ceiling followed closely by Spider-man. 

“Hi, Tony Stark. Nice to finally meet you.” Tony said, holding out his hand.

“Um. Hi.” The red figure squeaked, shaking it gingerly. Tony’s heart sank. It was unquestionably a kid. And he could feel the kid’s hand shaking. Probably from nerves and border-line starvation. Tony could definitely see a ribcage. No wonder Clint had invited him in.

How to deal with a child? Pepper. Pepper would know. “You should meet Pepper!” He blurted out.

“Who?” The spider-kid asked.

“My um, CEO. I mean wife.”

“Okay?”

“I have taken the liberty of calling Ms. Potts.” Jarvis said helpfully.

“Why don’t you have some food, meanwhile.” Clint offered. “We have leftover chinese take-out.”

Peter was reluctant to pull his face mask up to eat, even half-way, but the hunger pangs in his stomach won out.

Pepper came downstairs while Peter was shoveling chow mein down without shame. Jarvis had clearly briefed her on the situation, because she smiled warmly, sitting down across from him. 

“Hey, sweetheart.” She said. “So I heard you were sleeping in our air-ducts.” 

Pepper carefully kept her tone non-accusatory, but the boy flinched anyways. “I-i’m sorry.” He said, after swallowing down a mouthful of food. “I didn’t mean to trespass, I swear. It was just really late and I didn’t have enough web-fluid to swing home, and-”

“Hey, it’s okay.” She soothed. “You’re not in trouble.”

Judging by the tense set of his shoulders, Spider-man didn’t believe her.

“Do you mind telling me how old you are?” Pepper asked.

“Nineteen.” Peter said quickly. 

All three adults gave him an incredulous look.

“Eighteen?” Peter tried.

Clint lifted an eyebrow, and Peter hung his head mutely. They had him pinned, but he wasn’t about to admit anything. He was smarter than that; he knew where he’d end up, and it was right back where he started.

“I turned sixteen two months ago,” Peter admitted

“Sixteen. Jesus.” Tony said, shaking his head

Shit, Peter thought. What if they called the police? What if they put him back in the foster system and he had to give up being Spider-man? His breath quickened as he considered all the possibilities, none of them good. 

“Where the fuck are your parents, kid?” Mr. Stark demanded. 

Pepper glared at him. “Tony, shut up for just a second.”

“Don’t have any.” Peter hazily heard himself say, through the beginning of a panic attack. “I-I don’t-”  
His vision actually started going black around the edges, and he frantically pulled his mask down all the way.

“Sweetheart, I think you’d be able to breathe better if you took the mask off.” Pepper said sharply. 

“Can’t.” Peter gasped. If he managed to get away with it on then he’d be safe. If they saw him without the mask, it was all over. He clutched the edges of it desperately, terrified they’d try to take it off of him.

“Hey!” Tony said. He stood up and approached Peter. Slowly, trying to be non-threatening. “Kid, you need to breathe. C’mon, breathe with me.” He took a slow exaggerated breath.  
“No one here is going to hurt you. You’re safe.”

Peter didn't believe him, not in the slightest, but he was sure the mask was strangling him, and he’d die if he didn’t get if off soon. It was either take it off of his own free will, or Mr. Stark or Pepper would remove it once he passed out. 

With a strangled gasp, Spider-man yanked the mask off his head and the three adults found themselves looking into the thin pale face of a terrified looking boy.

Nobody even reacted. Tony kept on insisting that Peter do the breathing exercises until he had calmed down. 

“Alright, good. You’re good.” Tony said finally, once the boy didn’t look like he was on the verge of fainting. “What’s your name, kid?”

“If I may,” Jarvis said, “He appears to match the picture of Peter Benjamin Parker, a profile found in the missing children’s list.” he put up a hologram with Peter’s picture and information for Tony to look at.

“Is that you?” Tony’s head whipped back to Peter, who bit his lip and nodded reluctantly. There wasn’t much use in denying it; the picture was clearly him, even if he’d lost some weight and looked rougher around the edges.

“Please don’t call the police,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to go back to foster care.”

Clints face hardened, “You’re not going back to foster care,” he said with conviction, “I’ll adopt you myself if I have to.”

“You’ll do no such thing! Pepper and I are going to adopt him.” Mr. Stark looked at Pepper sheepishly. “I mean, we are, right?”

Pepper nodded, coming to stand beside her husband. “Of course.”

Peter’s mind ground to a halt. “I- you- what?”

“I’ll call my lawyers first thing tomorrow.” Mr. Stark said, ignoring Peter’s reaction.

“Wait,” Peter said. “You guys know nothing about me.”

“Peter Parker, orphan, age sixteen,” The inventor said, reading from Peter’s casefile. “Birthday August 27th, which means you’re a Virgo, by the way. Brown eyes, brown hair, goes to Midtown High, at least you did, before you went missing. That’s perfect, it’s only a couple of blocks from here. And ah, yes,” Mr. Stark waved his hand and the holograph vanished. “You’re Spider-man. And that one isn’t even in the file.”

“I . . . know nothing about you?” Peter tried weakly.

Clint snorted, “Right, because it’s not like our personal lives are splashed across the internet for everyone to see or anything.”

“Peter, honey,” Pepper said consolingly, “We don’t have to actually adopt you if you’re not okay with that. But we are going to have to apply for custody so that we’re your legal guardians.”

“What if you guys end up hating me?” Peter asked quietly.

“Eh, I hate Barnes and I let him stay.” Mr. Stark shrugged. Pepper elbowed him, making him yelp and quickly switch gears. “What I mean is, short of you being a serial killer there’s no way we’re not going to like you.”

Peter wasn’t sure what to say or do. Thank them? This was way more generous than anything he deserved. On the other hand, there was no way he could actually stay. Staying meant he might come to care for them, and everyone he cared about died. That’s just how life worked. 

Then Peter shook himself. These were the Avengers. Surely they didn’t get attached to people easily, because of the high fatality rate in their line of work. There were probably smarter than Peter in that regard.

“I-I just don’t want to be an inconvenience.” Peter said finally. 

“Kid, my entire life is one big inconvenience.” Mr. Stark snorted. “Saving the world all the time? Inconvenient. So’s having to sign a shit-ton of paperwork everyday. Wanna know what’s not? Helping out the friendly neighborhood Spider-man. Moreso, helping an innocent kid. Got it?”

“Yes sir, Mr. Stark.” Peter mumbled. 

“Call me Tony.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay I'm gonna be honest-- this is going to have super long chapters so there might be a bit of a wait between each one. Please bear with me! Also, I'm suffering from writer's block and I have way too much homework. I'm like 75% sure I'll actually finish this . . . eventually. Comments are my life blood and they often give good ideas! So please! Comment! Thanks guys!

Peter’s first night in The Avengers Tower was restless. He kept wondering what Mr. Stark’s- Tony’s, he corrected himself, angle was. Maybe it would look good with the public if he had a kid? What if he didn’t want Peter to continue being Spider-man? What if he wanted to tell everyone Spider-man’s secret identity? 

It was a good thing that Peter had slept about an hour in the air-duct, because he definitely wasn’t getting any sleep in the lovely room that Mr- Tony and Pepper had supplied him with. The room was great. The bed was big and warm and soft, plus he even had his own bathroom. He’d even taken his first real shower since running away, which had been amazing (even though there was no shampoo, just a bar of soap). But he just couldn’t sleep.

At 6:00 AM the ceiling spoke, which didn't really help Peter's anxiety.

“You can go eat breakfast on the main floor if you'd like, Mr. Parker.” The crisp british accent said mildly.

“Where is that?” Peter asked, once he'd recovered.

“I apologize for startling you. The main floor is where you met Mr. Stark last night. If you step into the elevator outside in the hall I can take you there.”

There was already someone in the kitchen when Peter came down. He stood near the doorway fidgeting nervously, waiting for her to notice him. 

The woman had beautiful long red hair and looked very intimidating. It didn't take long for her to sense him. She looked up, stiffening, and a taser suddenly appeared in her hand.

“You're the kid.” She said, after studying him for a few seconds. She put the taser away. “The one Tony took in last night. What's your name?”

Peter was sure she already knew, but he had to be polite. Otherwise she'd probably kill him (at least that was the vibe she gave off).  
“I-I'm Peter. Spider-man.”

“Well which is it?” Her stance relaxed, now she looked amused.

“Both?”

“I mean what should I call you?”

“Oh! Uh, Peter. Peter is fine.” He blushed.

“Alright Peter. I’m Natasha. It’s nice to meet you.”

Natasha. Natasha Romanoff. She was the freaking Black Widow! Peter resisted the temptation to flail and fanboy, and also the temptation to run far, far away where she and her taser were not.

Ignoring Peter’s silent freakout and inner turmoil, Natasha asked, “So, you want any breakfast? I can make pancakes.”

The Black. Freaking. Widow. Was offering to make. Him. Pancakes. Peter was sure his brain was short circuiting. 

“Um. sure.” He squeaked. Then. remembering his manners, “Thank you.”

“C’mere, I’ll show you where everything is kept.” Peter inched towards her timidly, still a little wary of the taser. 

After the kitchen tour, while Peter was eating the (admittedly delicious) pancakes, Tony came stumbling in. “Coffee?” He asked. Natasha handed him a cup. “Mmm thank you. Peter? We gotta talk bud.” 

Tony shot Natasha a look. She shrugged. “I gotta go to shield today anyways. It was nice meeting you Peter.” She smiled at him, surprisingly warm.

“Th-thanks again for the pancakes. And well, everything.” Peter said nervously. She just smiled again and waved as she exited the room.

Hearing the words “we gotta talk” is never pleasant for anyone, but it was particularly fear-inducing for a certain spider-boy who had just been unexpectedly taken in by Tony Stark and had no idea where he stood. 

“I called my lawyers already, and they’re going to get my application for custody of you rushed through. We should be good by tomorrow but you can stay here until then anyways.” Tony got straight to business. “Okay, so about Spider-man.”

“I can’t stop being Spider-man.” Peter blurted out.

Tony looked surprised. “Yeah, okay. I wasn’t going to ask you to stop. I looked into your school records though, and you had really high grades there for most of the time. I just don’t want patrolling to affect your school work. Speaking of which, when do you want to go back to school? I can get a meeting with your principal as soon as you’d like.”

Peter wasn’t sure of what to say. He had definitely not expected Mr. Stark to be worried about trivial things like school and grades, if at all. 

“I guess . . . next Monday?” It was currently a Thursday, which meant that he would have about four days to get school supplies and register for his junior year. Since it was only about two months in, he wouldn’t stand out too much. And it’s not like he had any friends to ask questions.

“Alright, great, great. I can order notebooks and stuff for you, or you can go shopping for them yourself if you’d like, just let me know.”

In the past, Peter liked picking out his own school supplies. Before-school sales meant getting cheap awesome notebooks with things like Star Wars and (embarrassingly enough) The Avengers on them. But now? Having to make choices like that seemed daunting. “Online is fine.” He said quietly.

“Okay, cool. I can do that.” Mr.- Tony clasped his hands around his coffee in front of him and cleared his throat. “So uh, tell me about yourself. What do you like to do?”

It occured to Peter that Tony was feeling almost as awkward as he was. Strange, Peter thought. He’d looked up to Tony Stark for as long as he could remember, in awe of the genius super-hero who managed to save the world time after time. He’d never thought that the charismatic billionaire could be anything less than suave. 

“I um, I like science.” Peter ventured, “and photography.” 

“I can get you a camera if you want.” Tony offered instantly. “And the lab is always open, of course, with adult supervision. Jarvis, remind me to introduce him to Bruce.”

“They will be meeting at dinner, sir.” The AI said.

“Bruce . . . Bruce Banner?” Peter squeaked. He tried to avoid fanboying again, with marginal success. 

Tony looked surprised. “You’ve heard of him, like not in the context of the big mean green fighting machine?”

“Of course!” Peter exclaimed. “His biochemical work is some of the most advanced in the world!”

“It’s actually the most advanced.” Tony corrected with a crooked grin. He didn’t look skeptical, which Peter appreciated. Most adults wouldn’t have believed him. 

“So, uh. Who else lives in the tower?” Peter asked, trying to sound casual.

“Well me and Pepper obviously, there’s Cap and his not-so-evil-anymore boyfriend, you already met Natasha and Clint, and I’m fairly sure an ex-agent named Hill lives somewhere around here too. You’ll see her at some point.”

“C-captain America has a boyfriend?” Peter squeaked.

“Oh, yeah. You know that guys with the metal arm that’s been seen fighting with us a couple of times? That’s The WInter Soldier, aka James Barnes, aka Bucky, but only Steve’s allowed to call him that.” Tony pouted a little.  
“Their relationship became public knowledge last year, but hey, you probably missed it, being on the run and all.”  
“Apologies sir, but Ms. Potts would like to remind you that you have a lot of work to do today.” Jarvis interrupted.

“Shit. I mean shoot!” Tony shot a nervous look at Peter. “Yeah so um, knock yourself out. You can do pretty much whatever you want. Your floor and this floor are free for use. You can also go out, Jarvis already put you in the system so that you can get back in, right J?”

“I have, sir. May I suggest that you buy yourself some new clothes today, Mr. Parker?”

“That’s okay, I still have a few shirts.” Peter mumbed.

“No way.” Tony shook his head. “You need more than ‘a few’ shirts. Money isn’t an issue. Here.” He took a wallet out of his back pocket and handed Peter a credit card. “It can’t be traced back to me so no one will accuse you of having stolen my credit card.”

Peter took it hesitantly, stammering his thanks. 

Tony plunked down a phone that he’d pulled seemingly out of nowhere in front of Peter. “Here’s your new phone. Stark-phone of course. It’s programmed with everyone’s numbers already. And it’s paired with Jarvis in case you need anything extra. He can do almost anything. Uh, legally of course.”

Peter wondered if producing things out of thin air was an Avenger’s thing. 

“Anyways, I’ve really gotta go or Pep will kill me. Bye!” And Tony was out the door, leaving Peter alone.

He felt distinctly awkward sitting in the kitchen by himself. Tomorrow he’d be the official . . . ward? Of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, but he had no idea what that meant.  
Peter picked up the phone and examined it carefully. He wondered if it was a way for Mr. Stark to keep tabs on him when he was outside of the AI’s view. 

Peter just ended up going back to his room. He didn’t want to use the card he’d been given. What if it was just one big convoluted test? What if they were still going to call the police on him?

A knock at his door interrupted Peter’s paranoid theories. 

“Who’s there?” He called. 

For a split second he was sure it was someone come to arrest him, but then- “It’s Clint. Hawkeye? Guy from last night?” And Peter felt a rush of relief. 

“You can come in.”

Clint entered the room. “Hey,” he said easily, “I was sort of in your position once, you know, foster care and being a runaway and everything. I figured you were probably freaking out a little. So, want to do something?”

Peter gaped at him. He’d been expecting a, “so what’s your story,” or maybe, “how do you like it here so far,” but Clint was literally just offering his support and a distraction. 

“Uh, yeah.” He said gratefully. “What did you have in mind?”

“We can go for a walk, I can introduce you to whoever you haven’t met yet, or . . . I can kick your ass at Mario Kart!” Clint said excitedly. 

“I’ve never played,” Peter confessed.

The archers eyes widened. “How?? You must be the only kid in the world, or at least America who’s never played Mario Kart.”

“We couldn’t afford a Wii,” Peter mumbled, his gaze suddenly far away. “I didn’t have any friends, so it’s not like I was being invited over to play, and the foster homes I was in just sucked.”

“Well I’ll teach you how to play.” Clint said firmly, ignoring the suddenly gloomy atmosphere.  
“And hey!” He brightened. “This gives me an advantage! I might actually win a round this time!”

\----------

A few hours later Clint threw his controller down in frustration. “Screw you super-powered people and your super-reflexes.”

Peter managed a small smile, his first one since . . . well, since a while ago when he’d saved a little boy who had hero-worshipped him. The mom had bought him a falafel after, which made it even better.  
But that had been as spider-man. This was his first real smile as Peter Parker. He couldn’t remember the last one.  
“Sorry. I tend to pick up new things really fast.”

“There was a time when I thought I did too.” Clint grumbled. 

Just then Peter’s stomach let out a growl.

“Oh wow, It’s already past noon!” Clint exclaimed. “Wanna go out for lunch? I can’t cook worth shit.”

“Okay,” Peter said, surprising himself. He still wasn’t sure about leaving, but getting outside would be a good idea, and Clint didn’t seem like the type to trick him into anything.

“Awesome! So pizza, burgers, thai, chinese again, what are you in the mood for?”

“I could actually go for a burger.” Peter said. After almost a year of near-starvation, Peter was going to pack in as much high-calorie high-fat foods as possible until he got sick of it. His metabolism meant he couldn’t gain too much fat anyways. Most food he ate got converted into energy and muscle. 

They walked to a fast-food joint that Clint claimed had the best burgers in all of New York. They were pretty good, Peter had to admit. 

“Oh! I forgot to tell you before,” Clint said, when they got back to the tower, “this elevator is the best one. Make sure to use it whenever you can.” He was referring to the one on the left. He seemed quite serious about it. 

“Alright.” Peter said, deciding to not question it. Maybe it went faster than the others?

Once they were back on the commonfloor, Peter said, “So, the other people who live here . . . “ He trailed off, unsure how to phrase the question.

“You want to know what they’re like?” Clint guessed. 

“Well, yeah, but also, how do they,” Peter spread his arms vaguely, “work?”

Clint didn’t even ask him for further clarification. “Well we all kind of have our own groups. Obviously me and Nat, Tony and Pepper, Steve and Barnes.”

“Y-you’re dating Black Widow?” Peter squeaked. He couldn’t imagine how that worked. 

“Yeah.” Clint grinned, his expression turning dreamy. “She’s great. Just don’t get on her bad side and you’ll be fine.”

Clint went on to tell him that the women of the tower were all very close-knit. The only one Peter hadn’t met yet was Hill, whom no one knew too much about. Dr. Banner mostly kept to himself, although he often collaborated with Tony on obscure science projects, which sounded interesting.  
Peter was surprised by the amount of observation that Clint had put into categorizing everyone in the tower. Then again, he was an assassin, Peter reasoned. Of course he categorized things.  
Everyone seemed cool, and it seemed that everyone was at ease with each other. Even Mr. Stark and Barnes, whom he claimed to hate, seemed to have some sort of camaraderie going on. The Avengers seemed to have the perfect balance and Peter wasn’t sure where, or even if he’d be able to fit in. 

Dinner was an interesting experience, one that Peter dreaded going through again. Luckily, they didn’t seem to be an every night sort of thing.  
He’d stumbled his way through being introduced to everyone, barely avoiding squealing a couple of times. He was pretty sure they all thought he was crazy.

Captain America had been perfectly friendly and polite, of course.  
Dr. Banner and Barnes hadn’t said much, although the latter had fixed him with a terrifying glare until Pepper told him off.  
Hill had smiled at him in an unsettling way, that made Peter’s stomach twist. Clint and Tony swore that she was actually trying to appear friendly. 

They all joked around, but there was a slight edge to it, like they weren’t quite sure how to act with a new person there.  
There were a few attempts to include Peter in the conversations, but he’d been out of the loop for almost a year so he didn’t really have an opinion on most of the things he was asked about. He hadn’t even heard of the recent movies they were discussing and he definitely hadn’t kept up with politics. 

“So, Peter where do you go to school?” Captain America (call me Steve) asked politely. 

“Midtown High.” Peter mumbled, avoiding eye contact. “At least, I did.”

“You going to go back?”

“Yeah, on Monday,” Peter replied, tapping on his leg nervously under the table. Then he realized what he was doing and forced his hand to still.

“If you ever need help with homework I’ll be happy to help!” The captain said cheerily. “But uh, between you and me, I’m no good at math. It’s changed and progressed a lot since the 1920’s.”

“I won’t need help with math.” Peter said without thinking, then he realized how vain that sounded. “Um I just meant that it’s my strong suit. I usually don’t have any trouble with it. Sorry, it wasn’t supposed to come out like that.”

“Ain’t nothing wrong with knowing your strengths,” Barnes grunted, speaking up for the first time. “I’d be a shit assassin if I didn’t know I was good at it.”

“Um, thank you.” Peter stared at him. 

Barnes’ mouth twitched. “Confirm.”

Peter had no idea what he was confirming so he decided to stay quiet. 

The silence dragged awkwardly. 

Everyone continued to eat while Peter wished fervently for the floor to swallow him up. 

He was far too relieved when everyone started getting up. 

“Hey, um. Peter?” Tony cleared his throat. “We’re having a movie night if you want to join us. It’s kind of like a weekly, sometimes monthly tradition.” 

“Uh, no, that’s okay,” Peter said, slowly backing away. “I’m actually going to . . . go patrol.” He nearly added ‘if that’s okay,’ before reminding himself that Tony wasn’t really going to be a parental figure in his life.

“Oh! Right. Uh, be back before . . . Jarvis? What’s a good time?”  
Okay, maybe he was.

“Before three,” Pepper said, before the AI could answer. “Maybe once you start school, before one. Sound good?”

“Before 1:30 on school nights?” Peter suggested hesitantly. 

Pepper smiled. “Fair enough. Be safe. Call us if there’s anything big.”

Peter forced himself to smile back, although it felt strained. “Thanks. See you.” He took off back to his room to get changed. 

Somehow it was worse, he thought to himself, swinging around the city, living with other people again. After being on his own for a year, he could hardly remember others having expectations of him. Even worse, he wasn’t quite sure yet what those expectations were. 

A huge blast of light in the distance interrupted his thoughts. He’d better go check that out. 

He arrived at the scene, peering out from his post on a nearby bridge. A bearded man in a ski cap was showing off with a huge gun. It was nothing like Peter had ever seen. ‘Blaster’ was probably a more accurate word for Peter to have seen the explosion it had caused from so far away. There were three men all standing around a white van, two selling and one buying.

Peter quickly pulled out his phone and snapped a picture so that he’d be able to study their faces later. 

The arms dealer seemed thrilled with his weapon, the buyer less-so. “I wanted something low-key,” he said.

They didn’t make a deal. The would-be buyer left.

The dealers packed up the blaster and got into the vehicle.  
In a split second, Peter decided that duh, he had to follow. He shot a web at the van which he realized a moment later was a dumb idea -- it drove off slightly too fast for him to keep up. He lost his balance while the van continued picking up speed, dragging him behind it. Dirt and rocks scraped his skin unpleasantly, tearing up his suit. Peter held on to the web as tightly as he could.

Unfortunately, the driver noticed, and started taking sharp turns, trying to shake him off.  
The van’s back doors flew open and the guy in the ski cap started shooting at him. The man was yelling, maybe at him, but Peter couldn’t make out any specific words.  
Peter tried desperately not to let go of his web, holding on for dear life. He had to see where the people were going. He had to put a stop to these weapons.  
The only advantage to being dragged crazily through the road was that the man couldn’t seem to hit him. 

There was several minutes of being dragged through street after street. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, what appeared to be a huge mechanical bird with glowing eyes bore down on him. A closer split second glance told Peter that it was actually a man with metal wings wearing a mask and goggles. Almost like Falcon, but more evil looking. Also actually more evil, if the way he grabbed Peter and flew away with him from the truck was any indication. 

Struggling and twisting in mid-air, Peter tried to hang on, maybe web up the guys wings and interrogate him, but he couldn’t. The man had him by the wrists, dangling underneath. His stomach twisted unpleasantly. Before Peter really knew what was happening, he’d been dumped into a river. Or onto, rather. It was frozen over which meant the landing hurt quite a lot. If he’d had any exposed skin, it would have been skinned raw. His suit was pretty tattered up already as it was. 

The flying man -- Peter really had to come up with a name for him -- hovered over him, well out of reach. “Stay out of our business.” His voice came out garbled, like a growl. Peter desperately shot a web at him, but he dodged it and flew away before Peter had the chance to try anything else.

Well, looked like the fight was over for now, but Peter decided to retrace the van’s route just in case. Following the tire tracks was actually useful. On the side of the road there was a glowing purple stone. It looked radioactive, but honestly? After gaining his powers through a radioactive spider, Peter was almost 100% sure he was now immune.  
He pocketed it.  
Unfortunately, the tire tracks cut out once they reached a paved road which wasn’t far from the spot that the arms deal had been going on, leaving him with no clue as to where they had gone. 

Peter checked his watch, physically exhausted from the night he’d had. Fighting a giant bird-man, getting dumped from the sky, being dragged behind a car for several miles and then retracing those miles on foot -- tended to wear a guy out.  
It was still only 12:33. This day seemed to be dragging on forever.  
He had almost three more hours he could kill. At least until he realized that he was pretty much out of web fluid. It was going to be a long walk back to the tower.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh I have such terrible writers block, if there's any specific scenes you'd like to see in this please lmk because I need to fill up the next chapter with SOMETHING. Thanks! Enjoy!!!

Peter felt wrecked and shaky by the time he got back. Walking for close to two hours was super not-fun, especially with a metabolism like his.   
Technically he still had an hour-ish to patrol, but he decided that he’d done enough for one evening. He wanted to get back to the tower and eat something, maybe analyze to cool glowing rock he’d found, and crash. 

“Welcome back, Mr. Parker,” the cool british accent greeted him when he stepped into the lobby, “Mr. Stark requested that you come see him when you returned. He is still on the common floor.”

Well shit, Peter had been hoping no one would be awake so that he could forego any more awkward interactions.

He went reluctantly up to the floor, and found Mr. Stark seated at the kitchen table thumbing through something on his stark-tablet. “Hey kiddo, have a seat.” He gestured to a plate in the middle of the table. “Barnes made cookies. Thought you’d be hungry when you got back.”

“Oh! That’s nice,” Peter said, genuinely touched. “I hope he didn’t go into any trouble.”

“He likes to make food.” Mr. Stark waved a hand dismissively. “Try one. I guarantee they’re going to be the best ones you’ve ever had.”

Peter tried one. It was indeed the best cookie he’d ever had. “Woah, that’s delicious.”

Tony grinned proudly as if he’d been the one to make them. “Told ya! Anywho, how’d patrol go?”

Peter briefly debated telling him about the arms deal but decided against it. It was nothing he couldn’t handle by himself. He’d only tell them if it became more of an issue. He didn’t know anything yet, and he’d hate to bother them for no real reason. 

“It was good,” he lied, “nothing particularly interesting happened. Except um, I ran out of web-fluid.”

“You can come to the lab tomorrow,” Tony said, “that’s actually why I waited up for you. I wanted to invite you down. I’d love to see how it’s made. I’ve analyzed every video of you on youtube and I can’t quite figure it out.”

“The secret ingredient is my saliva,” Peter confessed.

Tony’s eyes widened. “Really?” 

Peter cracked a smile. “No, not really. Although maybe I should try that.”

“Well Brucie is a chemist so we’ve got every chemical available. Also, the other reason I wanted you down in the lab . . . well, I’ve started making you a new suit.” Tony looked at him, appearing slightly apprehensive. “It’s going to have its own AI and over 550 web shooter combinations, and a built in heater-”

“Why?” Peter interrupted. “I mean, sorry, I don’t want to seem rude, but . . . why?”

Mr. Stark looked surprised. “Well I mean, you can’t keep going around in that onesie. It’s definitely not protective, for one.”

“It’s not a onesie,” Peter said defensively, “I just . . . didn’t have many options on how to make it.” 

“Well now you’ve got limitless options,” Tony pointed out, “so you might as well use them.”

“I-I just,” Peter stammered, “I don’t want you to waste your resources on me.”

“I already told you kid,” Tony shook his head, “it’s no trouble.” He got up. “I’m going to turn in. come by any time tomorrow after 10:00. Oh, and by the way,” he threw over his shoulder, “feel free to take food up to your room to snack on. I know how fast super-powered people’s metabolism works.”

Peter watched him leave silently, wondering what his angle was. Then he shook his head. He’d just be grateful for whatever the avengers did for him for now.   
He’d take some food up to his room, Peter decided, and look over the rock he’d picked up. Maybe he’d find time to secretly analyze it down in the lab.  
Rummaging through the drawers and cabinets, Peter found a few giant bags of sour-cream and onion chips. Score!   
He took just one bag for the time being and headed up to his room. 

Peter made sure to lock his door before gingerly taking the stone out of his pocket. (okay, fine. So maybe the top half off his suit was a hoodie and the the bottom was sweats. No one needed to know or care). 

“Would you like me to analyze that for you Mr. Parker?” Jarvis inquired. Someday Peter wouldn’t jump when the AI spoke. Today was not that day.

“Y-you can do that?” Peter asked. 

“Of course. It appears to be of an alien material, specifically from the chitauri battle of New York. I believe it may be explosive if exposed to radiation.”

“Oh.” Peter put the rock down hastily, “So it’s a bomb?”

“It is a power core from one of the Chitauri weapons.” Jarvis corrected. “It’s primary purpose is not to explode.”

“Thanks,” Peter muttered, “so I just have to . . . not put it in the microwave, right?”

“That would be a wise course of action,” Jarvis agreed. “You should also avoid security scanners, as they use radiation to detect weapons. Luckily you did not have to go through the tower security or the tower may have blown up.”

Yikes, that was quite a close call. 

“Might I ask why you did not tell Sir about the power core and the circumstances in which you found it?”

“It’s nothing for him to worry about,” Peter said quickly, “Please don’t tell him.”

“There is nothing in my protocols which requires me to,” Jarvis replied.

Peter breathed a sigh of relief. So Jarvis didn’t report everyone’s every move to Mr. Stark. Now that he thought about it, that was ridiculous. Even telling him just Peter’s actions would take up his whole day. 

Just to be sure, Peter asked, “What is in your protocols to tell him?” As they conversed, Peter started pulling on the shirt and sweats from last night. He hadn’t exactly brought much in the way of pajamas when he ran.

“There are currently none in place specifically for you. There is an attack prevention protocol which informs the inhabitants if the tower is under attack. There is a protocol to tell Sir when someone is approaching his lab, and I inform him of any questions that people may have for him while in other rooms.”

“What about for the others?” Peter wondered.

“I have a privacy protocol which prevents the tower inhabitants from spying on each other. They can, however, ask whatever they’d like without repercussion.”

Peter understood. He could ask as many questions as he wanted, about anything he wanted without fear, he just couldn’t rely on getting an answer. 

Right now, what Peter wanted was a way to stop the arms dealers.

“Can you track people by picture?” Peter asked.

“Certainly,” the AI said after a pause. “Is the picture in your Stark-phone?”

“Oh! Yeah,” Peter said, moving to take it out hastily.

“Done. I have accessed the picture and am now searching for the identities of the men. I should have their profiles for you in a few minutes.” Oh right, Jarvis was in his phone already.

“That’s okay.” Peter yawned. “I’ll take a look in the morning. It isn’t urgent.” 

“Very well. Good night Mr. Parker.”

Climbing into bed, Peter couldn’t stop himself from marveling at how nice it was to hear someone (even a fake someone) wish him a good night. No one had done that since-- since Tabitha, he guessed. And she’d done it quite passive-aggressively.

\----------

Peter slept slightly better the second night than the first night, meaning he got two or three hours of sleep instead of none.

He woke up at a nice moderate 8:37 AM which was much better than six, and checked his phone for the identity files that Jarvis had prepared for him.

The arms dealers were named Jackson Brice and Herman Schultz. It seemed that Brice had been the one to try and shoot him while Schultz was the driver. 

The third man, the buyer, was called Aaron Davis. He, unlike the other two, had a criminal record. Peter filed Davis’ information away just in case he couldn’t find the Brice and Schultz himself. 

“Hey, Jarvis?” Peter asked hesitantly.

“What can I do for you Mr. Parker?”

“Are you allowed to tell me if anyone is in the kitchen?”

“Everyone is currently either at work or on their respective floor,” Jarvis said.

“Thanks.” Good, so it was safe to go down without encountering any awkward situations. 

Peter decided to go classic with cold cereal for breakfast, pleased to note that they had some good, sugary ones as well. He noticed a piece of paper magneted to the fridge when he was getting milk, titled “The good list.” On it was things like, “white chocolate mochas,” “ice cream,” “friends.” It made Peter smile a little. 

Above it was a white erase board with a few different foods on it. Peter assumed that it was a shopping list. 

After breakfast Peter still had almost an hour to kill before he could head down to Mr. Stark’s lab. He put his dish in the sink and turned on the water.

“What are you doing” came a voice from behind him, startling Peter so badly that he sloshed soapy water everywhere.

He turned to see Barnes-- not scowling, exactly, but looking at him grumpily, one eyebrow raised. Peter almost exclaimed at how awesome it was that he could do that before remembering that he’d just been asked a question.

“Washing my bowl?”

“Is that a question,” Barnes said pointedly, and Peter blushed. 

“I was washing my bowl,” he said, this time without the questioning inflection.

Barnes rolled his eyes. “I meant we have a dishwasher. You don’t have to do it by hand.”

“I-I don’t know how to use it. I’ve never had one before.” After Aunt May had passed, Peter had always been the dishwasher.

“I’ll show you.”

“That’s okay,” Peter said hurriedly, “I’d rather just wash it. It’s just one bowl, not a big deal.”

Barnes regarded him impassively for a moment. “I also don’t like dishwashers.” He said. 

“Oh.” Peter swallowed nervously. “You don’t?”

Barnes shook his head. “It encourages laziness. Also, Steve insists on filling it up all the way first so that we’re down to no dishes before we can clean them.”

Peter still wasn’t quite able to wrap his mind around the fact that this man was dating Captain America. 

“Wait, so then why were you offering to help me with it?” Peter asked.

Barnes shrugged, “maybe you like them.”

“Well thank, thank you mister um, Barnes.”

“Bucky,” he said, squinting at Peter before his entire face smoothed out, making him look about 30x more approachable. “You can call me Bucky.”

“Bucky,” Peter repeated. “Thank you.”

Barne-Bucky shrugged and headed over to a cabinet, pulling out a huge jar of peanut butter. “We were out on our floor.” he said, by way of explanation. “I’m making cookies. Are you allergic.”

For a second Peter thought he meant to cookies, before realizing that Bucky obviously meant peanuts. “No,” he said. “I’m not allergic to anything.”

“Good. I’ll bring you some later.” 

“Thank-” Bucky had already left. 

It was 9:35. Still half an hour until Peter could join Tony in the lab and see his new suit.   
He washed his bowl out, and then decided to dedicate a bit of time to coming up with a name for the evil guy with wings.   
Peter could immediately rule out anything to do with falcons or hawks, since those were taken. The guy definitely needed a bird of prey name, since he had that vibe. Eagle was rejected too, since it was a) the symbol of America already and b) way too noble, anyways. The name needed to be something . . . creepier.   
Peter’s first possibility was ‘The Buzzard,’ but that just sounded weird. Plus he pictured buzzards as fat and lazy for some reason.   
Suddenly, it came to him. A kind of scary evil-ish bird of prey with negative connotations? The Vulture! That was perfect. 

Peter looked up at the microwave clock and groaned. It was 9:39. Apparently that had taken less time then he’d hoped. 

A minute of staring at the wall blankly later, Clint came ambling in, yawning widely.

“Heya Pete, wassup?” The archer headed straight for the coffee pot.

“Nothing much,” Peter sighed. “I’m waiting until ten so that I can go down to Mr. Stark's lab.”

“Call him Tony. Mr. Stark is too respectful. Why ten?”

“He said ten or later and I don’t have anything else to do.” Peter gave a half-hearted shrug.

“I hate to break it to you kid,” Clint said, taking a fortifying gulp of coffee, “but ten or after Stark time is after. Way after.”

Great, Peter thought, more time to waste. 

“He was up early yesterday though.”

“Pepper made him do that,” Clint explained, “he was behind on signing papers.   
I can take you shopping if you have nothing to do,” he offered. “Do you need anything?”

Peter was about to say he was fine before remembering that he had no shampoo. He could probably use clean underwear too.

“A few things,” Peter said. “But you don’t have to come with me if you don’t want to. I’m sure I can find a store by myself.”

“Nope, field trip! Do you mind if I call Nat? She can help pick out clothes and stuff.”

“I guess, but I don’t need-”

“If you say that you don’t need clothes then I might have to call you a liar,” Clint interrupted. “I saw what you have in that backpack. It’s definitely not enough for you to live on for the next couple years.”

Peter balked at the mention of ‘years’. Everything in his life had been so inconsistent thus far that he hadn’t even thought about the new permanence of his situation. 

“I’m here.” Natasha had materialized out of nowhere. “Jarvis called me.”

“We’re going shopping!” Clint said, before Peter could formulate a response that wasn’t gushing like an idiot. “Petey here needs new clothes.”

“Good choice,” Natasha told Peter seriously. “Otherwise Pepper Hill and me would have bought you more than you’d know what to do with.”

Peter gulped. It sounded like she had experience in the matter.

“Let’s go,” she said briskly, “There’s a Target a little bit past the tower.”

Well, at least everything was going to be in one place. 

They got shampoo first. Peter just picked the first one he saw. Shampoo was shampoo, right? It must have been okay because he saw Natasha study it before nodding to herself. 

“You should get conditioner too, with hair like that,” Clint said. There was a teasing glint in his eye.  
Peter wasn’t sure what it was supposed to mean so he shrugged and picked up the first conditioner that he laid eyes on as well.  
The archer let out a snicker when he peered at the bottle, but Natasha didn’t say anything so Peter assumed it was fine. Conditioner was the one that made your hair smooth and shiny, right? Nothing wrong with that.   
After a moment of consideration, he threw a pack of toothbrushes in as well.

They moved on to the clothing section. Natasha eyed him critically for a moment before tossing a ten pack of boxer-briefs into the cart. Peter couldn’t help blushing a little but thankfully neither of them commented. 

“Are you sure you just want Target clothes?” Clint asked.

Peter looked at him, confused, “Where else would I get clothes from?”

“There’s a Ralph Lauren down the street,” Natasha said.

Peter blanched. “Isn’t that super expensive?” 

“Tony can afford it.” Clint rolled his eyes.

“Um, no thats, that’s okay,” Peter said quickly, “I don’t need anything fancy. Just t-shirts.”   
What was he supposed to say? That he didn’t deserve nice things? That Mr. Stark and everyone else were already doing too much by even taking him in?

Peter carefully picked out five shirts. One had a clever science pun on it, which made Natasha and Clint exchange glances. “What?” Peter asked, maybe a little bit too defensively.

“You’re a lot like Tony, is all,” Natasha said. “Here, try on this button-down.”

Peter tried on the short-sleeved polka-dotted shirt, finding to his surprise that it fit perfectly. “How’d you do that?” He asked, impressed.

“One of her many talents,” Clint told him. “She’s the reason I never have to pick out my own clothes.”

“Is that why all of your shirts are purple?” Peter asked curiously.

“Heh, no. Purple is just my favorite color.”

In the end Peter bought the six shirts and five new pairs of jeans.

It was almost lunch time when they got back but Peter opted to put the new garments away and then head straight to Tony’s lab.   
Clint offered to bring him down.

As they entered, music blaring from overhead speakers shut off and Tony’s head popped up from behind a microscope. “Pete! Hey, kiddo. I was half-expecting you to get here before I did. You seem the type.”

“Nat and I took him shopping so that that wouldn’t happen.” Clint said.

Tony scowled. “Get out of my lab, Barton, Last time you were here you dyed Brucie’s hair blue.”

Peter covered up a giggle. 

“Fine, fine.” Clint held up his hands and began backing slowly out of the room. He still managed to knock over a (thankfully empty) glass vial, which shattered. “Aw, no.” Clint turned and fled.

Tony sighed and rubbed at his temples as if this was a normal occurence that was to be expected. “Dum-E, please clean that up.”

Peter startled as a machine with one claw wheeled it’s way over to the mess with a broom. It beeped at him. It was almost . . . cute.

“He’s saying hi,” Tony explained.

“Y-you named your robot dummy?” Peter was nonplussed.

“D - U - M and then dash E,” Tony clarified. “I built him back in college.”

“Ah.” Peter shifted uncomfortably. 

“Well, come on over. I’ve got the suit schematics laid out here, and a prototype. The chemicals are over there if you want to get started on the web fluid.”

Peter relaxed a bit as he worked. He’d always felt at home surrounded by sciencey things.

Tony listened with avid interest as Peter explained how to make the webbing, and Peter was just as interested in the suit. He stood still patiently as Dum-E and another bot, U, took his measurements.  
At least they tried to, before Jarvis pointed out that he could do it visually. Poor Peter ended up in a tangle of measuring tapes. 

Finally, Peter had refills of web fluid and Tony was satisfied with the spider suit. (Although he called it Mark 1 so maybe not completely satisfied.) They worked remarkably well together.

“You can come down and help me whenever you’d like,” Tony said, “and if you ever think of an upgrade then let me or Jarvis know and we’ll try to make it work.” 

“Thank you,” Peter said, wishing he knew what else to say. Luckily, Pepper poked her head in right at that moment, saving them from an awkward silence.

“Clint let it slip that neither of you ate lunch,” She said severely, “So we’re having an early dinner.”

Peter jumped a little. It was already in the realm of dinner time? And shit, he hadn’t meant to upset Pepper, who’d taken him in so generously. “It, it won’t happen again,” he said quickly. 

Pepper laughed, but not like she was actually upset. “I’m sure it will, if you’re anything like Tony or Bruce. Next time try to at least snack while you’re working. Eat a granola bar or a smoothie.”

“I’ve told you Pep, eating destroys the concentration of sciencing,” Tony said, completely unrepentant. 

“And not eating will completely destroy your brain and end all ‘sciencing,’ as you call it,” Pepper retorted. 

“Alright, alright,” Tony rolled his eyes. “What’s for dinner?”

“I believe Nat made traditional russian pirozhkis.” She replied primly.

Peter wasn’t sure what those were but the smell coming from the kitchen was heavenly. 

It turned out that they tasted heavenly as well. 

Dinner was still awkward but Peter was so busy enjoying his food that he hardly noticed, at least until Pepper started talking to him. 

“So Peter, we have a meeting with your principal tomorrow,” she said conversationally. 

He almost choked, but managed to swallow painfully. “W-when?” He asked, the first thing that came to mind. 

“Nine A.M,” she said. “We have to discuss your schedule and such since you’re starting a little late.”

Peter hadn’t even thought about that.

“All your school stuff was delivered today,” Hill added, “It’s in a box outside of your room.”

“Thanks.”

“Along with a box of clothes.”

Peter stared at her.

Bucky let out a laugh. “You didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t,” Hill agreed. “But only because Nat said he bought his own today.”

“The women once bought me a large quantity of clothing because I only owned two shirts,” Bucky explained to him.

“We used money from your account!” Pepper protested.

Peter didn’t really get it. And anyways, he had at least five shirts stashed in his backpack to begin with. Way more than two.

“If I catch you re-wearing the same clothes too many times then I’ll have to forcefully buy you new clothes too!” Hill sounded cheerful but Peter felt vaguely threatened. 

“Jeez, don’t scare the kid,” Tony said.   
Then, “Hey Peter, are you planning on taking the new suit out for a joyride tonight? ‘Cuz I’d love to see how well it works if you want company.”   
He stuck his tongue out at Hill. “See? He even has a new suit within two days of living here. No need to force-buy him anything.”

“Can I come?” Steve asked eagerly. “We can compare fighting methods.”

Bucky glared at Steve and Nat put her hand on his arm, presumably to calm him. He glared at her too. 

“I think Spider-Man is more of a solo thing,” Peter said hesitantly.

Steve looked a little put-out but then he brightened “Okay, but maybe you can come down by the gym sometime and train with me a little!”

Peter couldn’t see any fault with that, so he nodded. “Yeah . . . maybe.”

Bucky let out a growling noise.

“Relax, Buck. He’s not gonna hurt me.” Steve rolled his eyes. 

“S’not you I’m worried about gettin’ hurt,” Bucky grunted. 

“Wha- me?” Peter asked. 

“Confirm. You’re just a kid. Steve’s Captain fucking America.”

“He’s got a point,” said Natasha thoughtfully.

“Language,” Pepper said sharply. 

Peter couldn’t help feeling a little hurt. “I’m an enhanced kid,” He pointed out. “I’ve got super strength too.”

“All the more reason he should train with Cap,” Hill said cheerfully. 

Bucky’s face cleared a little. “Okay.”

“All good?” Natasha asked him.

“Confirm.”

After dinner and some of Bucky’s amazing peanut butter cookies, Tony watched Peter leave to go patrol, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Huh. Barnes likes you.”

“What does that mean?” Peter asked nervously. 

“Just means he likes you.” Tony shrugged.

Peter wasn’t sure what to say, so shooting his brand new web-fluid at the nearest building, he swung away to fight that night’s crime.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately from here on out the chapters are probably going to be much shorter. I've got a lot going on, and therefore less time to write. Thanks for understanding!

Of course the one day that Peter managed to sleep past eight was the day he had to get up early. 

Jarvis woke him up, scaring the bejesus out of him. “Ms. Potts would like to inform you that you must leave in a half-hour.”

“Thanks, Jarvis.”

“Good morning,” Pepper said when he came down, “Jarvis told me you just woke up. Would you like to stop somewhere for breakfast?”

“That’s okay,” Peter said hurriedly. No need to make her spend more time or money on him than was strictly necessary. “I can just eat cereal.” 

“Alright.” Pepper pulled out a laptop and worked while Peter ate. He couldn’t help feeling guilty about taking her away from her clearly very important work.

“I can go myself,” He blurted out.

She looked up, frowning. “Hm?”

“If- if you’re too busy, I can probably meet with the principal on my own.”

“It’s no bother,” she said, “I don’t have quite as much to do today as usual. Besides, I’m sure an adult needs to be there since you’re still a minor. Are you ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

There was a car waiting downstairs for them.

“Peter, this is Tony’s personal driver, Happy. Happy, Peter.” Pepper made introductions.

Happy gave him a nod. “‘Sup, kid?”

“It’s nice to meet you,” Peter said politely.

The meeting was a bit uncomfortable to be honest, although it went well.

“Peter is now under the legal guardianship of myself and Tony Stark,” Pepper told Principal Morita.  
“He’s living in The Avengers Tower. We’d like to keep that under wraps for as long as possible, you understand. The official story will be he has an internship at Stark Industries if anyone wants to know why he’s there so often. And of course, if Peter would like to tell anyone the truth then that’s completely up to him.”  
She smiled warmly at a surprised Peter. He was allowed to tell people? Of course if he didn’t want the paparazzi stalking him or people realizing he was spider-man, a cover story would be the best option.

The principal had nodded, looking slightly dazed. “Of course. I’ll do my best to only give the rest of the faculty information about Peter on a need to know basis. We take privacy and respect very seriously here.”

“Thank you.” Pepper smiled sweetly at him.

“Now, Peter,” Principal Morita began, “about your class schedule.”

“I’ll be able to graduate on time, right?” Peter asked anxiously. 

“Well, since you missed a year, usually the answer would be no. However, you were already very advanced compared to the rest of you grade. I think that with a little extra work you’ll manage. As long as you think you’re up for that.”

Pepper looked at him expectantly.

“Yeah! Of course,” Peter said quickly. He’d work as hard as he could to make up for everything. The last thing he wanted to do was disappoint the avengers. Tony had mentioned his grades. What if he disappointed him? What if they threw Peter out if he failed? He couldn’t let that happen, he’d just have to study his ass off. 

“Are you sure?” Pepper was looking at him with almost maternal concern, but Peter pushed that thought away. 

“I can do it,” he insisted. It might take several sleepless nights, but he could.

They finished up the meeting, Principal Morita telling Peter to take his schedule to the secretary and get it printed up.

On the car ride home, Pepper asked, “do you remember the name of your doctor?”

“Her name is Dr. Clements.” Peter hadn’t been to her in over a year.

“Your principal said that the school is going to need a copy of your immunization records to check that everything is up to date,” Pepper explained.

“I think the last time I went she told me I was good for the next few years,” Peter offered. “And I remember the office being in Brooklyn.”

“Should be easy enough to find,” Pepper said cheerfully, “What are you doing today?”

“Nothing specific,” Peter mumbled. 

“I’m really craving ice cream. What about you?”

Peter looked at her cautiously. “Ice cream is nice.”

\----------

The rest of Saturday and Sunday flew by, Peter focusing on organizing his school supplies and watching Crash Course lessons as a refresher. 

On Monday he finally went back to school.

It was painful. Peter had to introduce himself even though everyone already knew who he was. He hated the feeling of everyone’s eyes on him. 

At lunch Peter sat alone like he always had, keeping his head down despite the curious looks and whispers directed towards him. 

Directly after school ended, Peter went to the decathlon club and asked if he could rejoin. 

“Of course!” Mr. Harrington said immediately.

Predictably, Flash spoke up. “But he came too late! We already have enough people.” Seemed like not much had changed in the past year.

“Peter enrolled late. I’m sure if he’d started on time then he would have been here.”

Peter nodded fervently. 

“Why’d you even come back?” Flash sneered, “We were doing fine without you.”

“Hey!” Mr. Harrington said sharply.

“We lost last year’s tournament,” Abe pointed out. “And you never answer any questions anyways.”

“Just let him try out against Flash,” Michelle said, looking bored. That hadn’t changed either.

The rest of the team -- including Liz, who Peter noticed with a stomach swoop, had gotten rather beautiful since he’d been gone, nodded in agreement. 

“Alright. Seven questions. Whoever answers more wins.”

It was no contest. Flash only managed to answer one correctly before Peter got four right, making him the instant winner.

“Penis cheated.” Flash said immediately.

“Don’t call your classmates names,” Mr. Harington chastised. “Besides, Peter wouldn’t cheat, would you Peter?”

Deciding not to point out that there was literally no way he possibly could have cheated, Peter said, “of course not.” 

“There. Done.” Mr Harrington turned to Flash. “You’re back to being a back-up. Don’t worry, you can still put decathlon on your college application.”

“Thompson’s going to need it,” Michelle muttered, too quietly for everyone except Peter, with his enhanced senses, to hear.

Privately, he agreed. 

Peter spent the next week furiously catching up on everything he’d missed, patrolling as spider-man, and mooning over Liz. 

He’d never had a crush like this before. He spent every period they had together, and lunch, staring at her. Not in a creepy way though. It was only creepy if he got caught. 

Okay, so maybe she’d caught him a few times, but she hadn’t looked creeped out. She’d smiled, a lovely, kind, beautiful smile.

Liz wasn’t just beautiful, she was also super smart, and a good leader. She was the head of the decathlon team, as well as several committees like the student school events and the school newspaper, plus her GPA was just as good as Peter’s.   
(And his wasn’t exactly slacking.)

Speaking of school events, the Homecoming dance was coming up soon. Peter wondered if he should bother asking her. The only issue was that he was sure she’d say no. 

Before the dance was going to be a major Decathlon competition. Peter hoped that maybe he’d impress her, possibly even be the reason they won, and then he’d ask her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year! Hope everyone partied safely and had someone to kiss at midnight :)

Not much was happening on the weapon dealers/vulture front until it was. Clint was giving Peter a tour of the vents, at least the ones he hadn’t seen already, when his phone chimed and Jarvis said, “there is an alert you should check on right away, Mr. Parker.”

Peter glanced down at his screen. Jarvis had finally found something to do with Jackson Brice and Herman Schultz. They’d been seen frequenting a specific area almost every night.

“I uh, I gotta go take care of this,” Peter told Clint. “It’s . . . something important for school.” 

Back in the privacy of his room, Peter found that conveniently, he was going to be brought quite close to the dealer’s sighting location for the decathlon competition.

This turned out to be a slight issue when Pepper asked if he wanted her to come watch the competition. Of course, that had set off a chain reaction of Tony and Clint saying that they should go as well. Steve and Natasha had looked mildly interested. Bucky remained unreadable.

“I think it might be a little conspicuous if all the Avengers showed up to see a high school thing,” Peter squeaked desperately.   
Of course he was going to try and make the competition, but who knew what might happen? And if he knew that they were all in the audience counting on him, he’d probably become too flustered to think. 

“I understand,” Pepper said, looking disappointed. “And I probably can’t afford to miss a day off of work anyways.”

Peter was relieved. He definitely didn’t want to be the source of her inconvenience. She was already doing more than enough.

The days before the competition were spent studying furiously, and daydreaming even more about Liz. A particularly common scenario that Peter kept imagining was him, answering the final question correctly, winning the decathlon meet, and Liz being so happy and proud that she kissed him. 

It was the first time ever that Peter had imagined kissing someone. It seemed like it’d be nice.

Apparently his crush wasn’t a secret, because all of the Avengers seemed to know about it. It appeared that he talked about her a lot without even noticing it. 

Clint was the most vocal about it. Every few days he’d stop by Peter’s room with something along the lines of “Petey, I have an(other) idea for how you can win her over!” Almost always in a sing-song voice. He did at least seem genuine about wanting to help, though.

Peter just wasn’t sure a dramatic solo on the football field was the key, no matter how many rom-com movies it worked in. Also, he couldn’t really sing. And he sort of had stage-fright. Plus, he was sure the school would never let him live it down. 

Finally, the trip came. Peter was really glad to be away for a few days. The avengers were great, but they were everywhere. Since Flash had blackmailed bribed or threatened his teammates against him, Peter had a room all to himself. He was enjoying the privacy, even though it was mixed in with quite a lot of loneliness. 

On the bright side, there was no one to question him when he snuck out to go watch for the arms dealers.

He crouched on top of a street light, the perfect vantage point to see but not be seen.

Luckily he didn’t have to wait too long. Herman Schultz passed by, and Peter followed.

“Would you like me to put a tracker on him?” His suits AI asked, startling him. He was still getting used to not being alone in his suit.

“Good idea,” Peter whispered. That way he’d be able to find the man even if he lost his visual.

With a regular AI, Peter would have had to expressly given the command to send a tracker. But this one was made by Tony Stark, and was therefore much more intuitive. A flying bug (ha) detached itself from Peter’s suit and silently went after Schultz.

Peter found himself being led to a warehouse. There were four guys inside. One was sitting at a table tinkering. Despite himself, Peter couldn’t help being impressed with the guy’s weapon designs. They almost rivaled Tony’s.

“Hey, suit lady,” Peter whispered. Damn, he had to get her a name. “Are you scanning all of this?”

“I record everything you see.” The AI said pleasantly.

“Thanks.”

Both Herman Schultz and Jackson Brice were there, as well as one other guy. “Run facial recognition on the two new guys, please,” Peter said.

“You will be notified when they are identified,” he was told cheerfully.

“Okay, I’m going in.” Peter started forward.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that without calling for backup.” His suit said.

Peter drew up short. “Wait, what? Why?”

“It is one of my protocols. I cannot allow you into situations where you are severely outnumbered and likely to die.”

“I took out twice this many guys last week,” Peter pointed out, frustrated. 

“It’s not about the number of men, it’s about their weaponry. According to my scanners and sensors, all of them are supernaturally powered and most are very fatal.”

“Ugh, fine.” 

Peter wouldn’t be able to do anything tonight, but he also wasn’t sure when he’d next get a chance to do anything about it.

“Are you sure I shouldn’t contact the avengers for you?” Suit-lady asked.

“No! Don’t do that.” Peter couldn't bother them for this. Sure, maybe it was a little more serious than he’d originally thought, but it was still nothing to bother anyone over.

The he realized: he couldn’t take them all on because they were surrounded by weapons, but- “What if I wait until one of them comes out and then pick them off individually?”

“As long as they are unarmed that would be acceptable. Although- may I suggest going back to your hotel and getting sleep for your tournament tomorrow?”

“I have until 1:30, right?” Peter asked. It was still technically a school night and if Peter wasn’t in his designated place by his curfew then the Avenger’s would be sent his coordinates.

“You do.” If it was possible for his AI to sound reluctant, then she did.

It was early yet. He had time. He sat down and waited.

A few minutes passed and he began getting restless. Suddenly, suit lady said, “You are getting a call from Tony Stark. Should I answer?”

Shit! Wait, no dont- “Answer,” Peter accidentally only said the last word out loud. Damn it.

“Heya, Pete, just noticed that you’re in the suit. Everything okay?”

“Everything is fine,” Peter lied, “I just couldn’t sleep. Thought DC deserved to be safe tonight.”

“Okay, that’s nice of you. Lot’s of crime?” Tony sounded like he was settled in to talk for a while.

“Not as much as New York,” Peter said, wondering how to hang up without being rude. It’s not like Tony actually wanted to be talking to him. He definitely had better things to do.

“Hah, yeah makes sense.”

“Hey Tony?”

“Yeah?”

“I was just wondering,” Peter said tentatively ,”Did you put protocols in my suit? Besides for the curfew one?”

“. . . Maybe.” Tony sounded vaguely guilty. “You didn’t set any off, did you? Wait no, I would have been notified.”

“What are they called?” Peter was genuinely curious. Plus he was bored waiting even if talking to Tony just underscored his deep-rooted loneliness issues. 

“The babysitter protocol, The blanket protocol and um, your blood sugar is looking a little low so you might want to activate the juicebox protocol.” 

Peter was pretty sure there were more but he was momentarily distracted. “You can see my blood sugar?”

“I can monitor your vitals for safety purposes, remember? That one was your idea.”

“I-I thought that meant like, injuries and my heart rate.”

“I can see those too!” Tony said brightly.

Before Peter could respond, he saw someone coming out of the warehouse. “Gotta go! Lot’s of crime!” Peter said hastily. “End call!”

He pursued the shadowy figure a distance away. “Is he armed?”

“No.”

“Perfect.” Peter webbed him up against a nearby convenience wall. 

“Calling nearby police to apprehend Jackson Brice,” his AI said. 

He wasn’t the vulture, but it was something.

“Goddamn you, Spider-man!” Brice shouted, “You won’t get away with this. I’ll get out, and when I do I’m coming for you!”

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Peter had heard it all before. That was the most common villian line shouted after capture. He didn’t really waste time responding anymore.

When Peter went back to the warehouse he found that it was already empty, to his disappointment, besides for the inventor. 

His AI still wouldn't allow him in. That would be all the crime fighting for tonight.

Stupid, he thought, that he hadn’t thought of putting trackers on the other men. He couldn’t afford to fail this. If he did, people were going to get hurt.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea what I'm doing. No, really.

“What’s the juicebox protocol?”

Directions to the nearest open convenience store suddenly appeared in his vision.

“That’s so cool!”

Then he dimmed. He didn't deserve food for doing a bad job at weapon busting.

“Mr. Stark is insisting you eat something.”

“Fine.” He’d go eat his undeserved food. 

The shopkeeper was quite stunned when spider-man came into his store at 12:19 and bought a bag of chips and a snapple.

“You don’t need to pay,” the man tried to protest.

“Perhaps you should ask to speak to his manager,” Suit-lady said. “He is not being a good employee, trying to give you food for free.”

It clicked. Peter knew the name for her. 

Peter awkwardly put a five dollar bill on the counter and left.

“Hey, am I allowed to name you?” Peter asked.

“I’m your AI. You can call me whatever you’d like if ‘suit-lady’ isn’t adequate.”

“How about Karen?” 

Because when she said “speak to his manager” she sounded exactly like a Karen.

“That is a great name, Peter. I will now respond to ’Karen.’”

His watch beeped, signaling an hour left of curfew. Might as well turn in now, he thought. He had the competition tomorrow.

\----------

The pressure was so high. Peter’s team was ahead by a few points but everything came down to the last question.

“If B equals CD and CD equals zero, what is a number that B can be equal to?”

There was a heart-stopping pause. 

A bell rang, but it wasn’t Peter’s. 

“Zero,” said Michelle.

“That is . . . correct! Midtown High is the winner!”

Their table erupted, all of them screaming themselves hoarse in celebration, piling on top of Michelle to hug her.

Peter was thrilled that they’d won, even though he hadn’t gotten the winning answer like he had in his daydreams. 

Then Liz turned to smile at him, and it was as if he’d done it anyways.

Peter could feel the question burning his lips, begging to be asked, but then Liz turned away and he’d missed his chance.

\----------

The avengers (and Pepper) seemed to notice that Peter was morose and more subdued than usual. Most of them tried to help in their own way.

Steve invited him down to the gym to train more, Clint cracked more jokes, trying to lighten the mood, Pepper kept trying to take him out for ice cream, for trips to museums. Even Tony had paused his work to try and awkwardly give Peer some words of advice on life but he’d just ended up getting flustered and trailing off. 

Peter was grateful, but he tried to avoid them all anyways. He didn’t mean to be a burden or cause them unnecessary stress.

It wasn’t just Liz that Peter was upset about. He’d made a really big mistake in not putting a tracker on the Vulture. Now they’d continue to make and sell weapons and Peter wouldn’t be able to stop it, at least not any time soon.

He couldn’t tell the avengers about it. It was his responsibility. Besides, they’d want to know why he hadn’t told them earlier, and then they’d be disappointed in him, and then Tony might take the suit back and-   
It just wasn’t worth it. Peter would just have to take down the vulture and his crew by himself. 

Homework was piling up as the year progressed and Peter began losing sleep. He knew he’d promised Tony that he’d finish all school stuff before patrolling, but crime wouldn’t wait for him to finish his math! Besides, crime-fighting had a curfew whereas he could stay up in his room doing homework as late as he’d like. (Even if Jarvis kept on suggesting he go to sleep.)

Peter was missing meals so that he could finish his work and/or go patrolling early. To make matters even worse, Flashes bullying had only gotten worse with their academic win. He kept purposefully coughing on Peter, which was frankly, gross and annoying. It was even worse than being punched. Flash had gotten all his cronies in on it as well, and now everywhere Peter turned there were assholes coughing at him. 

It all built up and up until Peter found himself hunched over a toilet during lunch, heaving violently while having the worst panic attack in the history of panic attacks. 

Naturally this made him late to his next period, but Peter just couldn’t drag himself away from the toilet. He was sure that if he did he’d spew vomit everywhere.

“Peter?” Damn it, his history professor had come looking for him. He hadn’t latched the stall since he’d come in in such haste. The door swung open.

“Peter, are you alright?”

“M fine,” Peter gasped, before dry heaving again. Nothing had actually come up yet and the churning feeling in his stomach wouldn’t stop. 

“Right. Well, pardon my language, but you look like crap. You’re most definitely sick. You need to go home.”

“I can’t be sick,” Peter protested.

“You don’t need to worry about missing class, Peter. You’re all caught up with everyone else.”

Peter appreciated the sentiment but he’d meant he literally couldn’t be sick. His accelerated immune system wouldn’t allow it.

“I’m going to insist you go home,” his teacher said. “You’re really in no shape to learn.”

“But I . . . “

“I can write you a note home, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No,” Peter mumbled, “It’s fine. I’ll just . . . go.”

Peter’s feet dragged on the walk home. He still felt nauseated, but worse, he was fatigued. Sure he hadn’t been eating or sleeping much, but he was spider-man. He should be able to handle it. But could it be possible that he was actually sick? 

He’d been planning on just heading up to his room and working, maybe taking a nap too. He hadn’t planned for running into Bucky in the elevator. 

Bucky scrutinized him for a second before stepping out. “Shouldn’t you be in school.” The door closed behind him before Peter could get past to it. 

“O-oh. Uh, hi. Yeah, I mean no, my teacher sent me home. W-what are you doing down here?”

“M’ meeting Stevie in the garage,” Bucky grunted. “Why’d you get sent home?”

“He thinks I’m sick.” Peter tried to say it with a self-deprecating smile to convey how unlikely that was.

Instead of relaxing, Bucky stepped forward with alarming speed, hand raised, causing Peter to flinch back.

The super-soldier stopped dead in his tracks, a stricken look flashing across his face. “Sorry.” he said. “ I was just trying to-” he gestured with his outstretched arm.

“Oh.” Peter understood. Bucky had just been trying to take his temperature. “No, I’m sorry. Here.” Peter took a step closer and let Bucky settle his flesh hand on Peter’s forehead. 

Bucky stepped back, withdrawing his hand with a frown. “You feel warm.”

“I do?” Peter asked, surprised. “But . . . I can’t get sick.”

“I’m sure your school won’t mind-”

“No!” Peter wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh or cry. The only thing he knew he wanted for sure was to curl up in bed and feel miserable. “I mean I actually can’t get sick. I’m spider-man. I have an accelerated immune system. I can get like, food poisoning but I haven’t gotten sick since the spider bit me.”

“You should still see a doctor,” Bucky said firmly. “You look like a racoon.”

“So do you,” Peter said honestly. He winced. “I’m so sorry, my filter sort of disappears when I’m tired.”

“It’s okay. I do look like a racoon. That would make you . . . “ Bucky tilted his head consideringly, “A koala.”

“Wha- I’m not a- How? Jeez, I really do need sleep.” Peter was pretty sure he didn’t usually splutter this much. 

“Why haven’t you been sleeping.”

“Nightmares.” Peter rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Shouldn’t you go meet Captain Rogers?”

“He wants you to call him Steve,” Bucky said seriously “It should increase his happiness by at least 37%. Happiness is mission compatible.”

“Uh . . .” Bucky wasn’t making much sense, but then Peter could feel the whole world spinning so maybe it was that.

“Building,” Bucky said and hey, his hand was on Peter’s shoulder, when had that happened? “Please tell Steve to come here. Someone will need to carry Peter over to Bruce when he passes out.”

“I’m not going to-” Peter tried to protest, but then the world spun dizzyingly before going dark, and then he felt like he was floating away.


	7. Chapter 7

Peter came to in what was clearly a fold-up cot, with an IV in his arm. The first thing he did was puke his gut out (finally). Luckily, someone had had the foresight to put a metal basin next to the bed.

He finally finished vomiting, dry heaved a couple of times and collapsed onto his side with his head still hanging over the edge of the bed.

“Peter?” he heard someone ask softly. So he wasn’t alone, then. He looked up. It was Dr. Banner.

“Jarvis, could you tell Tony to come down? Peter’s awake.”

“No,” Peter croaked. “I don’t want to bother-”

“We’ve all be waiting for you to wake up,” Bruce interrupted. “It’s okay. You’re not bothering him. He’s been useless since he found out you fainted.”

That only made Peter feel worse. “How . . . how long was I out for?” He asked. 

“Just a few hours.”

“Why’d I pass out?”

“Severe dehydration,” came Tony’s voice from the doorway. He entered, Pepper right behind him. “Also lack of sleep, and I know you haven’t really been eating either.” 

Shit. Tony did not look happy. Neither did Pepper really, but she looked more worried than anything.

“Peter, I hate to do this, but I’m going to have to take the suit back,” Tony said. “Jarvis told me you’ve been putting spider-man before school. You’re 16. That’s not okay.”

“I’ve been getting everything done,” Peter protested weakly. “And the city needs me!”

“No.” Tony started pacing in front of the cot, Pepper looking on worriedly. “The city needs us. The Avengers. And for petty crime? There’s the police. It’s not that you’re useless, or that you don’t help, but it’s not worth it for you.” 

“Please,” Peter begged. He could feel tears forming in his eyes. He couldn’t lose this. It was too important. So many more people would die because of him now.

Tony stopped pacing and held up a hand. “I don’t think I can discuss this right now. You need rest.”

“But-”

Tony walked out quickly, like he couldn’t bear to be near Peter for one second more.

Petr turned his pleading eyes on Pepper, who sighed and came over, smoothing out his bedsheets. “I’ll talk to him, sweetheart. He’s mostly upset with himself.”

“I need the suit,” he said desperately, beseeching her to understand. “I- it’s important.”

“I know it’s important to you,” Pepper said in a soothing tone. “But what’s important right now is that you get better. Tony’s right about that. It’s not okay how you’ve been working yourself to the bone.”

She didn’t understand. Spider-man wasn’t just important to him, Spider-man was just important. Moreso now than ever. How could he make her and Tony understand? Should he . . . should he tell them about the alien-technology weapons?

“I have work stuff to take care of,” Pepper said, oblivious to Peter’s inner turmoil. “But i’ll be back later to take you to the doctor.”

Peter watched her leave glumly. Then he was alone with Bruce, who smiled at him sympathetically. “I guess you’re going to want to brush your teeth, huh?” 

\----------

Pepper did indeed return an hour or so later to take Peter to the doctor.

“Hello Peter,” Dr. Clements greeted him warmly. “Long time no see. How have you been doing?”

Peter shrugged. There was no point in saying fine, he was obviously there for a reason.

“Alright, let’s see what’s wrong then, shall we? Are you sure you’re comfortable without your guardian in the room?”

“It’s fine.” He’d probably be more uncomfortable if Pepper was there.

“Good. so it says here that the reason for your visit is that you experienced a loss of consciousness,” Dr. Clements said, reading from her clipboard. “Do you know what might have caused that?”

“Tony- uh, my guardian said it was from dehydration.”

“Okay,” Dr. Clements nodded, writing that down. “Anything else?”

“Exhaustion too,” Peter said quietly.

“You haven’t been sleeping?” Dr. Clements looked at him sharply. “Do you know why that might be?”

Peter couldn’t exactly say that he stayed out patrolling as spider-man, so he gave her just a bit of the truth. “I’ve been staying up late doing homework. And then- when I try to sleep I wake up a lot from nightmares.”

“I see.” the doctor nodded in sympathy. “Unfortunately I can’t do anything about the nightmares. What I can do is recommend drinking more and keeping a regular, healthy diet.”

Peter nodded. He’d make more of an effort to eat, he promised himself. And drinking more would be hardly any trouble at all.

“Do you have any other concerns?” Dr. Clements asked.

“I- I think I might be depressed,” Peter admitted quietly. 

“Has anything happened that might be triggering that?” Dr. Clements asked carefully.

“Aunt M- well, my aunt died. And- and I was living in the streets for a while.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the doctor said sympathetically. “And now that you’re in a better place, do you feel isolated at all?”

Peter thought about how at school Flash made sure he had no one. And in the tower he was the only one his age, no matter how fun and cool Clint was.

“I- I guess?” He said hesitantly. 

Dr. Clements pursed her lips. “I’m going to give your guardian a list of therapist names for you to look into, sound good?”

“Yeah.” Peter ducked his head in a nod. 

“Great.” Dr. Clements stood up. “I’m just going to listen to your heart and take your blood pressure real quick and then we’re done. Sound good?”

“That’s fine.”

The doctor smiled, before putting the stethoscope into her ears. “Alright, breathe in for me- like that, good. And out. Again, in and out. One more time. Great.”

Then she had him hold out his arm so that she could wrap the pressure cuff around it. “Perfect!” Dr. Clements pronounced when she finished. “You’re in perfectly good health apart from the exhaustion and dehydration. I’m going to call your guardian in now and have a little chat with her. Do you want to stay for that?”

“Should I?” Peter asked.

“It’s not necessary. I’ll just be telling her exactly what I just told you.”

Peter shook his head. “I’ll wait outside.” He didn’t want to have to spend a second more in the presence of Pepper and the twisty-gut feeling of guilt that came with seeing her. And everyone else. 

On the ride home from the doctor’s, Pepper handed Peter a sports bottle and insisted he drink the whole thing. “What do you want for dinner, sweetheart?” Pepper asked.

Peter shrugged, cringing faintly at the ‘sweetheart’ after all the trouble he’d caused. “I don’t really care.”

“Does italian sound good?” Pepper pressed.

“Sure.”

“I just want to make sure you eat,” Pepper said, lips pursed worriedly.

Peter couldn’t hold back a visible wince. “I’ll eat it. I promise.”

Dinner was a subdued affair. Even Clint couldn’t crack enough jokes to ease the tension. Not that he made much of an attempt.

Bucky and Natasha seemed the most normal out of everyone, but even they seemed to have tense lines around their eyes and mouths. Well, Natasha did. Bucky just . . . looked like that. 

Bruce, Steve, and Pepper kept on pressuring Peter to drink more and eat more. 

Tony was the worst of all. He just ate in stony silence, and left abruptly once he was done, even though it was team movie night. 

“You gonna bounce too, Pete?” Clint asked once they’d all finished eating, a worried frown creasing his face.

“I-”

“If you stay then you can pick the movie,” Clint wheedled. 

“Thanks, but I have to study,” Peter said automatically.

“Building,” Bucky said from behind Peter, scaring the daylights out of him. “Does Peter have any important things due this week.”

“As far as I can see from Mr. Parker’s study and work habits, he has one test on Friday that he is already well prepared for. There is nothing else in his homework calendar.”

“There. No homework.” Bucky looked pleased with himself. “You can come watch.”

“Okay,” Peter agreed grudgingly. There was no harm in one movie. He couldn’t go patrolling for the time being anyways, plus everyone seemed to feel better when they had an eye on him anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depending on how much I actually manage to write within the next month, this might be my last update for a bit, I'm so sorry! It will be done eventually though!

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr if you want!


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